A/N: 23 December 2022 - Slight change to dialogue
Chapter LX: Fuel for Matches
Meanwhile…
In her dream, Reinette was crawling through a tomb, a dreadful forgotten tomb filled with a wave of screeching rats, all of them creeping up her back, fleeing a great beast lurking behind them. Hrafn, aid her...for there was blood on her hands. Blood streaming onto the stones like water.
She could not breathe, her neck craning against some unseen force, her teeth fighting for purchase. She could not possess it. She could not flee it. An iron hand forcing her to look up from the stones, wrenching the harness on her back. Pulling and scratching her eyes until she could no longer see what the darkness fled. Not the sun...nor the moon.
The eye of a demon.
Black.
She woke with a hoarse cry, trying to sit up. But there was no harness. No rats. Instead, a thick rope holding her down. The all-to-real sensation of a harness jerking painfully at her neck. Panic rising, fear that it was not a dream.
What had he done to her…
Desperate as the night of her awakening, she struggled, trying to feel what had changed, if anything. Her hair white in the corner of her eyes. Her hands still wrinkled. Her skin sweating beneath the light of a thousand torches, while the fabric beneath her head itched like lice. It felt like her head was on fire. She strained against the rope and then lay back again. The pain in her head getting worse beneath the heat. Pounding and swelling as though she'd been sucked into a furnace.
Focus, she thought. Escape first. Youth did not matter…
…only escape.
She remembered the layout of the room. The butcher's table upon which she lay, the fire gaping at the far end of the right wall, but not all as precisely as it had been. There was a torn rope swinging from a hook in the ceiling, a smear of blood leading to the door. Sabine, she thought. Blood, let them not have caught her. Her attention wanting to steer towards the door, but her fears lingering on the fire. Petrified that she would see a child's corpse burning among the ashes.
It had a cavernous aura. If she squinted, she could see flames licking the small fragments of bone that would not burn. The scent of acrid smoke melding with burning flesh. Old blood streaked across its stones as though many a throat had been slashed before it. The same blood soaked through the back of her dress. Too much blood to be her own… The memory of Sabine tearing down the corridor making her heart start to beat faster.
She had to get out. She had to move before he came back. She craned her neck beneath the rope that held her down, searching for something sharp: a knife, a piece of glass, anything with which to free herself. Everything out of reach, save for a box of nails on the table. Her eyes now seeking the shadows, the dark, the hole through which the monster had dragged her. Was he still in the room, she wondered. Waiting for her in one of the corners.
The battered wooden door taunting her with hope. The sight of scratches on its surface, the thought coming out of nowhere: that she could be hopeful at the scratchings of a lycan. Even so, the scratchings were timeless. Impossible to discern how old they were, making her wonder if she was lying to herself. Had years passed since her kidnapping…Had she fallen into another sleep… Had another decade of her life vanished like a half-remembered dream?
Adrenaline, born of fear, making her eyes Change, making her head pound even louder. Her mind tearing forward into the unknown. Conscious that there was a wound in her skull trying to heal. Conscious that perhaps it was not the blood of others soaked through the back of her dress, but her own life force bleeding out.
Perhaps she was dead, she thought. Terrified and listening to the silence, she found herself praying to it. Begging in her heart that she would not hear the voices of her past. Her mother, her father, her sisters and the brother who fell beneath the ice. If she heard their voices, it meant they were damned alongside somehow, she had sucked their souls away with her choices.
Perhaps it was the wound in her head. Her eyes rolling back as she began to see beyond the walls. Not a vision of her future, but a memory of her past rising up like smoke before an altar. If not for the table and the rope, she would have been swaying. Rising. Seeing. A black eye staring into her soul.
Hrafn.
His name was Hrafn.
Branding his name into her skin so that all would know her for his creature. So that all could see that she was bound to him. His promise growing darker as the years passed. Dark until the snows turned black beneath his sight.
Until he locked her into a cage…and hung a silver key upon the stones of a great hall. Its surface now tarnished and old for the many times it had been turned in its lock. Sweat coated her skin. The brand on her side starting to seethe with pain. Yet it was not the brand from which she fled. It was something happening beyond the door…
…something dark that she did not want to see.
Eyes open. Thought and motion resembling the flight of birds. She needed to get out. Mindless, she grappled with the rope at her wrist. Straining to reach the binding. Believing that she could stop the memory by scratching through it. She did not want to remember. Adrenaline pumping faster into her veins, making her heart beat faster than a war-drum. Her nails curled into her wrist, scratching and tearing at the ropes until they were slick with blood. Twisting and turning until one of the cords snapped. Fleeing before she could remember. The mind suddenly empty and the door on her memory slamming shut.
Free.
Slick with sweat, she sat up.
Breath flowed down her lungs again. The freedom unexpected. Even with the heat at her back, she was shivering. Shaking as she unwound her wrist from the table, using her nails to make short work of the remaining cords. The one around her neck turning into a hangman's noose. Stubbornly clinging to her skin until she forced herself to be still. Calm. Untangling its grip before she scraped through the last of it.
A weight still hung from her shoulders. A weariness borne of uncertainty. She was not his creature. She was not bound to him. The thought again giving her cause to fear. Fear as she wrapped her arms around her knees, holding herself together, afraid that she would crack if she gripped too tight. Counting her way to sixty, reaching deep within…
…and then chiding herself.
It was a decision to breathe and find her calm. Releasing her knees, choosing to forget about the door and its key. A fleeting memory with no substance, she decided.Like a cold winter's night, every breath fading as quickly as it had formed. So faint she could almost forget it was there.
Resolved now, she pulled herself to the edge of the table. Forgetting that her strength was not with her. Her head still pounding. The dress heavier, the material itchier than she remembered. Her fingers too weak to do more than drag her torso and all that she was wearing over the edge. As usual, her escape from anything resembling a horizontal position resulted in a catastrophe. The edge of her dress catching on some edge or another, drawing the steel table and its box of nails over with a dreadful...
Crash!
o…o…o
Two levels down.
They all heard it. A distance crash calling their ears to the surface above, like a waterfall of metal cascading onto stone. Grace was handing him the jailer's keys when she dropped them noisily, leaping back from the oilcloth. Her tiny pupils latching onto the ceiling, as though she half expected the lycan legion to fall through the bricks.
Ewan simply froze with his hand outstretched. Lycans were the least of his worries, he thought. Looking up with a shiver at the circular grate in the ceiling, the wheel still visible from his vantage point. True, it had been blocked off, the hole no doubt covered by some sewage grate or manhole in the world above; but he could tell what the place used to be.
Old Butcher's block, Grace had called it. But there were no slaughter hooks. No sign of the cattle pens and butcher's tables that could be found two levels above. He'd bet his thumbs this used to be an execution hall. Gravestones beneath his feet. The level deep enough to harken back a few centuries. Making him wonder how many ghosts still lingered in the space.
Out of the three of them, the only one to worry on was Nikolai. The vampire had been busy knocking holes in the wall, planting sticks of dynamite every four feet or so, wasting no time in the ten minutes since they'd brought the last load. Only now, the railroad spike in his right hand was hovering dangerously over a blasting cap. Fuses coiled around him like snakes, the lines going down the aisle and up the staircase. Either Nikolai would smash the spike into the dynamite, blasting them all to hell or…
"Restrain him," he shouted. The eye had turned black. The rest of the monster sprinting up the staircase. Pebbles falling from the level above, making Ewan wonder how sturdy the ceiling was. Whether it was his lot to end up with his throat torn out or his neck broken by falling rocks.
Either way, dead is dead, he thought, dragging Itzhak the rest of the way to the pillar. The ceiling blocked off with stone, but the pillar still usable. Fourteen feet tall with wooden edges and steel rings on all four corners. Hills of ash gathering at its base. Ash from fifty years ago, more like as not.
Grace licked her lips, retrieving the keys and handing them over with a glance over her shoulder. Throwing them was more like it. Her breath strained like a pig being led out to slaughter. Bowing and scraping out of fear, her skin the most precious thing she owned now. That was always the way. The monster up front while his lackeys scuttled around, trying to stab each other, while keeping themselves alive for another hour.
Or seven if he was lucky.
Eager to be done, he hoisted Itzhak up by the armpits, leaving the oil-cloth at the base of the pillar. His palms working the manacles around each wrist, running the chain through the ring at the top and pulling with all his might. Stringing the man up like a rack of lamb with his legs folded beneath. A hook by the wall serving as a hitch, but the chain still too long to raise him off the ground. The key turned twice in the manacles, and the chain fixed twice at the wall, before he stepped back to think. Think quickly. Think before they ran out of options. His neck hairs tingling as Grace crept up beside him.
She was making a whining sound. Already smelling the worst before he could see it, her neck hunched as though she wanted—in her soul—wanted to cow before the pillar. He'd seen it before. The pack system, the ranking. Something about the scent of this battered, bleeding creature drew her forward. The woman prodding the man's shoulder, sniffing around his head, testing the chains until she knew they were tight.
A right pair they were. Tightening chains, locking up manacles, when they both knew, sooner or later, the chains would not hold. Even with pieces of skin missing and rot settling in his knee, no amount of poking and prodding would shave any years off. The man was a full grown lycan, at least two centuries old… That meant they had an hour…maybe two if they were lucky.
It turned out to be less than that.
Ewan heard a breath.
A spasm from the man's throat, his lungs grasping for air. It was the only warning he needed. He'd lost enough fingers in this life. Dropping the chain, he shifted backwards, quickly enough to avoid the aftermath. Enough to avoid the jaws which had moving so suddenly, so viciously to turn on the closest among them. A spray of red streaked across the ground.
Grace had stepped too close. She was bawling in pain, grasping her hands around her throat, trying to heal her neck before she bled out. The skin closing quickly enough. Shock more than anything driving her movements, the wound less than mortal, but her spite leading her to think fast. The only one to use her head now that the chains had started to creak. Her movements hasty, her breath heaving as she stumbled back to the other end of the hall, leaking blood with every step. Hastily retrieving the leather roll left by the stairwell, the one Nikolai had carried from the old slaughter room.
By the time she came back, by the time they unrolled the silver knives, he may as well have been a cornered beast foaming at the mouth. Teeth snapping, claws slipping on blood, backing as far from them as his manacled wrists would allow. Lunging forward when they least expected it. Tenaciously jerking the rusty chain above his head, trying to wrestle the chain from the pillar. There were no words. No pleading. Just the struggle.
The two of them managed to wrap the chain around the pillar and his throat, keeping their flesh well away from his teeth. Reminding themselves that the Change had not happened yet. That as long as he was strung up, they had silver on their side...and it would be two of them and one of him. Two of them. One of him. Just needed the right bit of pillar.
The hands splayed just so…
…and a rock.
o…o…o
Two levels up.
A haggard scream pierced the air. Once…and then a second time. A hoarse, keening sound like an animal with its leg in a trap. Crouching beneath the table, Reinette bit her lip with a curse and swerved to look behind her at the door. It could have been a man. Or an animal. But whoever…or whatever it was, it could not be far from here…
She rashly snatched one of the nails, trying not to shudder at the foul grime—the remains of some beast or other—coating her fingers. Listening. Praying to the Fates that she might pass unnoticed beneath the wings of the monster who lived in this hole. Perhaps they had not heard.
And yet how changed her world had become. The memory of waking in the old monastery, of his arms carrying her to the fireplace, seeming like a dream compared to this nightmare. Nothing to do but hope and crawl forward, the heat beneath reminding her of what she feared. Pain. The crackle of fire. The one that would burn her if she was not careful. Creeping under the butcher's table, she kept her eyes away from the smoke. The putrid heap of victims who had vanished like smoke from this room...leaving only their teeth in the furnace. The small pieces of ash that would not burn. Her breath starting to run ragged, causing her to choke on the stench of the dead. Even for a vampire, it was too much.
By the time she crossed the room, she was shaking again. Hands slipping on the door knob. Too much blood on her hands. The iron made of sterner stuff than she, managing to slip from her grasp every time she turned it. Slipping...and slipping...until she used her dress. Folding the edge of the dead woman's dress around the knob and gaining a grip. Not just on the door, but her courage. Preparing herself to run.
The door opened with a creak, the sound giving her cause to wince. Afraid that the darkness, the shadows, held more than just stones and mortar. She could hear no steps. The silence boots clamping on stone. No glimmer of light beyond the door. So she squinted left and then right, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Fearful of taking the first step. Her thoughts focused on the floor outside, bolstering her courage, promising herself that all would be well…if she could just step forward.
It was not the door that stopped her. Nor the darkness. Rather, she stumbled back of her own accord. A lifetime of habits giving her enough instinct to avoid the match as soon as it was struck. Like a flare across the sky, it burst into flame, landing at her feet. Fleeting in its beauty, the flame dancing upon the stones before it shrivelled into ash.
He was here.
She had enough time to steel her torso, shaking, the nail gripped between her thumb and index finger. The attack came from the right. Sweeping across her throat, shoving her back through the open door. Her back colliding with the brick wall, the impact snapping the air from her lungs.
Dust clouding the air around her, she lashed out with the nail. The weapon ripped away before she could slash him across the neck. She was straining to breathe, his weight digging into the bones of her waist. The simplest portion of her mind taking . Claws. Her fists beating at the monster, struggling and scratching until they were a mess on the floor.
Kolya. Nikolai. Hrafn. All of them fighting to get a grip and Hrafn prevailing over them all.
"I waited for you," he said, her jaw tight between his nails and her hair wrenched back by his hand. "For twenty years, I waited on that ship…" The nightmare unfolding with the smell of oil on his fingers. "Biding my time, keeping my promise," he hissed. His breath stunk of bone and sinew, the stench of burnt blood dripping from every word. He held her jaw. "…and for what," he asked. "For what?"
He was mad if he thought she was listening. Only flight. Freedom. She tried to crawl forward to the door. Sobbing. Yelling. Her nails scrabbling for the knob, trying to pull herself away. His hands...his filthy hands holding her down. It was the heat of her nightmares. Fire coating her back and melting her skin. She clawed at his hands, trying to scratch his other eye out before it happened again. Skin crawling with the memory of heat. Oil on the ground, the doorway…the fabric of her dress.
He struck her hand away.
"You will remember me," he said. Reaching not for the silver flask, but for a small bottle tucked in his jacket. Fuel splashed over her dress, the bottle cast aside and his teeth bared against her ear. A match lit and the flame beside her cheek in a flash. So close now that she could see the pores in his skin. The eye filled with a reflection of flame, the madness of his obsession. "…before we leave this place, I want you to say my name, blood-seer. I want to hear it on your tongue."
She woke from the fear. Tasting her own blood, feeling the nausea of their struggle. A struggle that had caught up with her. The trap closing the moment she stepped aboard that ship. The match flickered between them, illuminating the eye of this ruined angel whose memories had been sucked by the teeth of a demon.
"Hrafn," she whispered. Her voice like a fading ghost, even now unable to name him in more than the smallest of whispers. Fearing the name on her tongue, yet unable to shy away from it.
She wanted to live. Even now, she wanted to live. Her instincts unable to conjure any recourse in this hellish existence. A place where not only vampires wanted her dead, but now lycans as well. She had burned too many bridges.
He blew the match out.
"And what did I promise you, beloved?" Excitement tinged his words. His hands tight around her lips and her throat, smearing the blood across her skin as though he wanted to choke her. "What did I say would be yours when we leave this place?"
"Youth," she croaked.
It was laughable now. Youth, he had promised her, and like a fool, she had followed. Even now, unable to believe what was happening, willing herself to shut her eyes and find herself back in her quarters. If only she could wake. Turn back the hours, change the hand of Fate. Blood, let it all have been worth something...
"For you are mine and I am yours," he said. His eye completely black now. His lungs seeming to inhale the words, breathing them like incense, as though every syllable could carry him to a higher plane. "Say it."
She could see the flask in his inner coat pocket. The silver flask, only a handspan from her reach. Her despair, the desire to preserve all that was her nature, rushing out. The flame flickering once before going out with her breath. "For you are mine, and I am yours."
The words spoken with a shiver, and she cringing away from the claws scraping up her side. Despising herself for weakness. Wanting to cower and flee and rage in the same moment. Wishing to blood she could remember what hold she might have had over this demon in a past life…
"And so we become one," he said, completing a circle, the weight of those words like a chain around her neck, pulling her down beneath the ice. Half of his face turned away, making her see for a moment again what symmetry she once saw in him. Causing her to mourn all that he might have been had the dream not ended.
Nikolai Proshkov Andreev with his winsome manners and elegant teeth. A dead man whose memories had been eaten.
He yanked her up from the stones. Forcing her to walk on stumbling legs through the doorway and into the dark. His stride pulling her through twists and turns until they came upon a circular metal hatch in the side of the tunnel.Another prison in the labyrinth. The memory of her dream rising like a living nightmare. The wave of screeching rats, all of them creeping up her back, fleeing a great beast lurking beneath them. Or behind them.
He made her turn the wheel of the hatch, nudging her to go before him into what once had been a dead-end. The floor now covered in bricks and stone, the crumbling remains of a wall that had been smashed recently. The air filled with dust and the pungent smell of a foreign incense. The space formed of the sunken remains of an abbey whose windows had been bricked and walled off.
She stumbled forward, skittering to a halt at its centre. Her heart leaping into her throat as she looked up. A vast stone wheel loomed above her head. Ancient and bricked off, its presence throwing an anachronistic slant on a room that showed signs of the nineteenth century. Broken glass and copper pipes lining the walls. Open crates of dynamite and a half a dozen canisters of fuel. A series of eight grates in the floor and a staircase on the right leading to the depths below.
Worse than the interrogation room in Paris. Older. Emptier. The cold catching in her throat as she glanced over her shoulder. Daring herself to be brave, to hold fast to what little courage a life without memories gave her. "Is this home," she asked softly.
Kolya took her hand, drawing her across the stone floor to the staircase. Beckoning her forward so that she might peer down into the black. The smell of paraffin oil overwhelming. "It is our escape, beloved."
She balked. Her courage fleeing up the walls. Grasping the edges of the staircase, trying to stop the tide. She did not want this. The rest of her thoughts interrupted by a sudden shrieking. A discordant noise, the muffled tones of her own voice beating against the dark.
He threw her over his shoulder, her waist caught between his arms like a worm. Carrying her swiftly down the steps into the lower levels of the sunken abbey. The space below taller than the level above, but her view limited to grave markings. The names and faces of those who had been buried so many centuries ago. Past the eight gridded cells lining the nave. Past the cobwebs and mildew, the stunned faces of his lackeys. She ended up in the second cell, the air knocked out of her and the cell door locked with a vicious twist. Her world reduced to a space of twelve by twelve feet.
From outside her cage, Kolya called out to the lackeys, the ones whose faces she had seen so briefly. The traitorous lycan and the fingerless vampire, the bear whose fingers she did not want to think on. Shoulders cowering, they stood on the far side of the wall, backing away from what looked like a beggar's corpse on a pillar. Some unfortunate soul whose final act would be food for their journey. Orders he gave them, but the words were in English, refusing to make sense in her mind.
The first instruction passed to the lycan woman. Grace. She listened with a slack jaw before scurrying to do his bidding. Two times, she passed before the bars, her neck bleeding and wrapped in a rag torn from the skirt of her dress. Both times she carried a canister of paraffin oil. Her legs moving as fast she dared, carrying both canisters and a box of matches. Everything moving so quickly.
The second instruction went to the vampire. The bear whose skull had healed, whose finger-ends she had sliced off so many centuries ago. Like a warrior about to fall on his sword, he tilted his ear to Kolya, but his eye did not move from her cell. Sweat pouring from every orifice as he ducked his head, twice to Kolya before taking a second box of matches from his hand. He fetched a stool from the choir, placing it directly across from her cell where he could watch her. All of them armed with dynamite, flames, and matches…
…and Kolya about to leave.
Again, whispering his intentions, his love for her, his desire to take her back to the north. But there was work for him to do, he said. He needed to fulfill his promise. He touched two fingers to his lips and reached towards the bars, leaving a kiss on the iron.
She was on the bars in an instant, plunging the length of her arm through, grasping for his inner coat. Missing the flask by a margin. Shouting after him. The sound guttural and deep, echoing through the dark, tearing into every insult and slight, every malicious thought ever shrieked from the tongue of a harpy. Retreating…and then pounding her fists on the bars.
Her eyes red…and the world blacker than tar. A feeling of hopelessness descending on her shoulders. She wanted to weep. Tear her gown until she was naked with a noose in her hands. Instead, letting herself slump on the floor, wrapping her fingers around her bleeding skull, wanting to dig her nails into the wound. The abbey, the tomb of her betrayal, growing quiet save for the sound of rats scurrying in the dark, mocking her with their freedom.
It was no surprise to her when it started. The guilt. First in her mind. Her own voice telling her she was a monster. And then Lucian. Judging her. Just like in the tunnels. Her head wanting to turn for she could swear she could hear him in this place. Dry like the pages of a book. Hating her with every fibre of his being.
"You just had to follow him," she heard him say. Contempt in his tone, albeit reflective in his observations. His voice distant and hollow as one trapped on the opposite side of a chasm. Had her room, the chairs and the fire been present, he would have been drumming his nails on the chair-arm.
The thought filled her with heartache. A painful longing. The feeling of loss, that she had had something…even the chance of that something filling her throat with sorrow. Rather than admit she was going mad, she covered her ears, burying her face against her knees. Wishing she could block out his voice, her dreams, these visions of the future…
It became worse. The voice clearer.
Louder.
Such a bitter voice in the dark. His hatred burning her soul with guilt. "—that mentally-deranged…" He was stretching the boundaries of Latin. "…prepubescent…arse-faced…" He'd reached the point of spitting blood. "…fuck…of a vampire."
She sighed. Envying the fingerless bear as he shifted nervously on his stool. If only he knew what she could hear. The madness that even now was taking root in her brain. No doubt a punishment from the fates above, the prospect of his voice haunting her throughout eternity. His voice and the fate she gave up for the sake of youth, her memories and a name…
"And here's what gets me, Reinette…"
Oh for bloods' sake, she thought wearily. The voice staying true to form, harrowing her when she wished for silence.Why could he not be quiet…why could he not leave her alone to her fate…
"—what gets me is that you knew he was coming," he pointed out. Had he been real, he would have been pacing the room by now. His judgment of the situation rising from somewhere deep within his chest. "Yesterday morning, you were afraid he was coming…" The whisper had become a yell. "…which means you had eight fucking hours to tell someone…"
"Quiet!"
"Make me!"
Her eyes shot open.
English.
Reinette lurched to her feet. Crawling frantically to the bars, peering down the length of nave, beyond the choir. Grace had been the one to yell it. Grace who could hear the voice in her head. She pulled herself along the bars, straining to see through the dust, her eyes still weak from the last Change. Refusing to be still until she found him. Beyond the bear, past the sight of Grace…and settling in horror on the corpse strung up on the execution pillar.
Lucian.
He was unrecognisable. Fingers broken, his knees bent in subjugation. Dirt and filth coating his skin, leaving his hair tangled and oily, hanging like rags from his head. Like a mangy dog abandoned in the sewers. His face, his back, his torso stained with blood. Slick and shivering, his breath hollow beneath the bruises. "Eight hours, Reinette." He seemed fascinated by that number. "…eight fucking hours…"
All she heard was her name. Her sweet name on his tongue, even though it was impossible. She was in shock. She had to be seeing things. His hands... they had stabbed his hands with silver. Her mouth refusing to connect with her mind. Hope taking over before she could stop it, the sensation sweeping over her head like soothing water on a burn. "Lyosha…"
Before she could say more, her guard, the bear was before the cage. The stool abandoned, and the view blocked by his profile. His eyes reflected, showing the same fear and desperation she saw when he was guarding Sabine. The same bear retreating from a porcupine, frightened by the world around him.
"Leave him be," he warned nervously.
His warning like a pebble trying to stem the flow of the tides. The thought firm in her mind as she shifted onto her knees, ignoring the bear, crawling left and right, desperate to see past him. It was too late to stop her, the cage too wide and the guard too small to keep her eyes from seeing him.
Grace looked panicky, her eyes jumping between the canisters and the living corpse she guarded. Her hands were shaking. Her neck wobbling as she called something out. Her voice strained and frightened. The words moving too fast, too garbled by dialect for her to understand this time.
Immediately, the bear turned around, gesturing with his hands. Pleading. Please. She knew that word. He wanted Grace to wait. He was begging her to wait.
Her mind racing, trying to grasp every thread telling her to be wary. Fearful of what the fates had in store. She was a monster. She did not deserve a second chance. Áris would call it punishment. A chance to watch him die. A chance to not only feel the loss, but see it crumble to dust before her.
Like a stablehand trying to calm a horse, the bear was trying to snag her attention. Shaken to the core, trying to undo what had already been done. "Please lady…we have orders. Do not speak to him. You must leave him be."
She was sputtering. "Why is he here?"
He wiped his brow, his voice wooden, repeating his orders by rote. "You must trust Nikolai, lady."
"Is that all you have to say," she asked. Turning on him with a ferocity that made him flinch back. "You think a skinned child is bad? Do you have any idea who you're dealing with…"
"Yes, lady…"
Plagued by his own words, the bear was almost crying now. Copious amounts of sweat staining his shirt, the fabric twisted between shortened fingers, twisted by the life he had lived. And she believed him. A strange, protective anger rooting itself in her breast as she looked upon his face, knowing that once they had both been in the same cage. Both of them scarred by the horror that was chasing her.
He spoke again. Softly, but firm in his answer. "Lady, the only reason I am here is because I know who I am dealing with." He nodded in encouragement. "…trust Nikolai, my lady. He will help you remember."
She hissed. "I do not want to remember."
The bear almost dropped his kerchief. "Please take no offence, lady. I only meant to say you are not yourself."
Not herself...
Her nails darted through the bars, scratching his cheek before he could leap back. Following him alongside the cage, daring him to come closer. "Would you rather I cut off your toes as well as your fingers again…is that what you would prefer?"
"Yes," a gravely disillusioned voice spat from across the abbey.
She twisted on her heel. "Lyosha, has it occurred to you that I'm on your side?"
"Oh thank fuck," he shot back. "Can I get my fingers cut off as well now?"
"I don't remember doing that."
"Well, I imagine he remembers, Reinette." He said it almost giddily. Like a drunk who'd wandered into his own execution. "…which in my book, makes you a lying, traitorous—"
It went on for a spell. His bitterness perhaps the only reason he was still conscious. Those around them who could not understand Latin thankfully unable to wince and in some cases, raise an eye over his ability to describe her using certain parts of her anatomy in a derogatory fashion. He was still angry. Obviously.
She straightened her shoulders. "Lyosha, if I had anything to do with this, why on earth would I put myself in a cage?"
"I don't know, Reinette," he snapped. His next words delivered in a ear-splitting bark. "Why don't we ask your fucking husband?"
She almost lost her grip. A sudden anger wrapping around her fists. Narrowing her gaze on what was turning into an enjoyable view. Blood-forsaken lycan being tortured on a pillar. That was precisely what she wanted to see right now. "My what?"
"You heard me…"
"And what the hell would you know about it?" She was standing on her toes, seething past the bear's shoulder, refusing to lose sight of the only bastard who was worth yelling at in this picture. Insufferable man. No longer caring if she found that grain of trust, that sliver of warmth that would only make it worse when they killed him. "…in case you've forgotten, Lyosha, it was you who decided to bring him into the country with us. Not me. You."
"At least I didn't run off with him," he retorted.
She slapped the bars. "I did not run off with him," she yelled. Practically screamed it, the bear between them be damned. "I was kidnapped…against my will…and now I am just as much in this prison as you are."
Clang!
Like the rush of birds in flight, the sound echoed into the rafters of the monastery. Her words, her anger, her breath, all of it swept away by the sight of a creature emerging from the shadows.
A face illuminated, the light blinding them all, forcing them to close eyes and raise hands as they cowered before the light. Unable to see the monster who lurked in the shadows. Unable to see until the sight had resolved itself into something unexpected.
One they all had started to ignore. One who did not speak Latin…or Russian. One whose mourning had now changed into anger. Instability in the face of order.
Grace, as the vampire had called her. Bulging and putrid, this traitorous pig whose patience had worn thin. She had raised her arm. No longer cowering in misery, but vicious and eager, like a beaten dog before her master. Fingers shaking, teeth sharp as she advanced upon them.
Light in her hand.
Ripples of black water seeping before her like a vanguard, every drop carried forward by the incline of stone, the curvature that beckoned all that was liquid towards its centre. Enough to set flesh and sinew alight. Enough to reach the ceiling and the walls, once bone had turned to ash.
And yet it did not occur to Reinette to be fearful. For it was absurd, the notion that this woman…this vile, traitorous woman…might be standing in anything but water.
So that in the end, it was Lucian who broke the spell. His eyes shifting from flame to the fuel canister in disbelief. Sound refusing to come…and then suddenly the monastery echoing with a horrific kind of laughter. As if the world were simply a game gone dreadfully wrong. And he the only creature to see it for it was.
A/N: Pheeew. Another chapter done. There may be mistakes, but I'll be doing a second round of proof-reading tomorrow evening. Many, many thanks to BelAyre for leaving such lovely (and thorough) reviews. They gave me enough impetus to steal away from bed and write until 4:00 in the morning (even though I have to be at work in less than 5 hours. Entirely worth it.) On that note, thanks to all who've been reading. As always, please feel free to read and review.